1. Field of the Invention.
This invention relates generally to object-oriented systems, and in particular to a notification system for object-oriented systems.
2. Description of Related Art.
In object-oriented systems, there is often a need to modify classes, objects, attributes, etc., and to notify one or more observer objects, such as views or windows in a user interface, of the modification. However, there is a problem in notifying the observer objects to update them to reflect the changes in observed objects. For example, observer objects may receive notifications of changes before all processing has completed, causing the observer objects to issue new requests from premature notifications and causing a potentially dangerous re-entrant situation. Further, the observed objects may have to be aware of and explicitly update the observer objects. Thus, there is a need in the art for a notification system that issues notifications after all processing in the object-oriented systems has been completed, bypassing the re-entrant problem.